The laptop I am using to write this has Windows 10 and periodically Microsoft will make updates to the system. Sometimes the update includes new background photos that display during the boot up process. This last update produced a very peaceful photo of a park. A wide walkway with a row of trees on both sides and benches lining the right side of the walkway as far as the eye can see. It is a pleasant, peaceful photo. The next time it came up I noticed in the left of the photo was a canal or small river running parallel to the walkway and then I realized there were no people in the photo; not one person walking or sitting on the benches. It was then that I saw through the lower tree branches the sun was just coming up on the horizon. Now I know the photo was taken very early in the morning. It wasn’t until the fifth or sixth time I viewed the photo that I looked up above the tree tops and saw a tall, familiar structure. It was the Eifel Tower and for the first time I realized the photo was taken in Paris, France.
Whether we are looking at a photo or at our life, we tend to concentrate on the details and sometimes in doing so we overlook the obvious. It isn’t until we look up that we begin to see how the details form the big picture. God knows every tiny detail of our life, but He sees those details as part of the much larger picture He has planned for us. He knows where we have been; where we are now and where we are going. It isn’t until we look up to Him that we begin to see glimpses of that much bigger picture. Helen Keller once said, “The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.” We see our life from our point of view, but it takes vision to see it as God sees it.
I’m sure it doesn’t surprise any of the regular visitors to my blog that as I write about looking to God, the words of a song come to my mind. One of my favorite gospel music artists, Dotty Rambo, wrote this one. “Well I can’t see the sun with my head to the ground. Tears dim my vision and weigh my heart down, but I get this feeling when I kneel to pray; when I lift up my head and He lifts up my heart, my troubles just all roll away. When I’m down; when I’m down and out; when my heart is filled with fear and doubt; then I lift up my head and He lifts up my heart and my troubles just all roll away.”
I was always taught to bow my head in prayer, but in later years, I have gotten so much more from my prayer life by lifting my hands and my eyes toward heaven and the One who sees the complete picture. He has the answers to all of my questions and the solutions to all of my troubles.